Jordan Lake. Dad Osprey definitely didn’t want the great blue heron to get anywhere close to his nest with mom and newly hatched chicks. As is usual in confrontational situations, the parent bird really doesn’t want to make contact because it does not want to get itself injured. It is better to bluff and threaten. The great blue heron made it safely past the osprey nest. Dad osprey landed triumphantly in the nest with his mate and chicks.

Jordan Lake. We can look at this photo in two ways. We can see that the female 3-year-old bald eagle has a wing length of ~7ft. The female osprey has a wing length of ~ 5ft. The fish, well, has a fin length of ~ 4 ins. Or we can look at the fact that the bald eagle weighs ~ 12#, the osprey weighs ~ 6#, the fish that the eagle wants to steal weighs about a pound… the osprey is carrying ~ a quarter of its own weight.

Jordan Lake. The ospreys have returned. The sky has suddenly filled with their chirps and fishing dives. This female appears to have a full crop and the remains of a fish meal on her lower abdomen. Welcome back Ospreys!

female osprey